FEMA gets mixed reviews on response to Ike victims

White's praise countered by many

Edna Barlow, gets help from her grandson, Eddie Patt, 21, while breathing oxygen from a tank as she sits in her car in front of her house in Acres Homes. She has slept in the car in recent nights, saying she found it cooler than the house while the power is out. Barlow is diabetic, has lung and heart problems and has been without a way to keep her insulin cold since Hurricane Ike knocked out the electricity. less

Edna Barlow, gets help from her grandson, Eddie Patt, 21, while breathing oxygen from a tank as she sits in her car in front of her house in Acres Homes. She has slept in the car in recent nights, saying she ... more

Photo: Karen Warren, Chronicle

Photo: Karen Warren, Chronicle

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Edna Barlow, gets help from her grandson, Eddie Patt, 21, while breathing oxygen from a tank as she sits in her car in front of her house in Acres Homes. She has slept in the car in recent nights, saying she found it cooler than the house while the power is out. Barlow is diabetic, has lung and heart problems and has been without a way to keep her insulin cold since Hurricane Ike knocked out the electricity. less

Edna Barlow, gets help from her grandson, Eddie Patt, 21, while breathing oxygen from a tank as she sits in her car in front of her house in Acres Homes. She has slept in the car in recent nights, saying she ... more

Photo: Karen Warren, Chronicle

FEMA gets mixed reviews on response to Ike victims

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Three years after its response to Hurricane Katrina made it a national symbol of government bungling, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is facing a fresh round of judgments from storm-stricken families and the public officials who represent them.

Houston Mayor Bill White said Thursday that the agency is doing a better job helping people affected by Hurricane Ike than it did after Katrina. He said, for example, that FEMA moved quickly to supply generators that are powering some of the city's sewage treatment plants, bypassing the "layers of bureaucracy" that hindered an effective response to Katrina.

The agency's progress, however, isn't evident to 60-year-old Edna Barlow, who's struggling to feed her extended family after throwing out food that spoiled due to lack of power in her rented northwest Houston home. Unlike after Katrina, FEMA isn't providing debit cards that storm victims could use for food or other immediate needs.

"One of the grandchildren I have custody of is 5 years old," Barlow said. "I can't explain to him why I don't have food to give him."

Instead, she said, she only eats one or two meals a day, despite medical problems including diabetes and heart and lung disease. She sleeps in her van, which is somewhat cooler than her house because she can run the vehicle's air conditioning sporadically.

Nearly two weeks into the recovery from Ike, FEMA has received more than 600,000 requests for home repairs, motel placements or other services from Texans. It has paid for more than 7,000 households to stay in hotels and has almost 1,200 inspectors in the field working on repair requests.

Problems cited by residents and elected officials include long delays or denials for applicants who seem clearly qualified, phone lines that are constantly busy and rigid adherence to rules that can delay help to people who need it.

Nick Stratos, 41, had a foot of water in his condominium in El Lago in the Clear Lake area. Stratos said FEMA has denied his request for assistance, and those of most other residents of the 147-unit condo development, even though El Lago's building inspector has declared the entire building uninhabitable.

"There's a problem," Stratos said. "Something in the system is broken."

Kim Rice applied online for FEMA assistance the day after Ike ruined her home on Galveston's West End. She was told that she would qualify for a hotel room if she provided proof of residency.

Rice said she faxed a utility bill with her address to FEMA three times, but was told each time that the documents were not received. On Tuesday, she went to a FEMA disaster recovery center in southwest Houston to put the papers in someone's hands.

"I'm frustrated to death," Rice said, standing at the rear of a line of about 30 people in the parking lot of a home supply store.

At another recovery center on Houston's north side, some Spanish-speaking applicants were turned away Tuesday because only one bilingual FEMA employee was on duty.

"I went and asked if they could speak to me in Spanish, and they said, 'English only,' " said Mario Mora, 47, a disabled restaurant worker.

Roy Broeren, a FEMA employee who identified himself as the site manager, refused to comment on the lack of Spanish-speaking staff at the center.

Other FEMA officials said they couldn't discuss individual cases. Spokesman Don Jacks, responding to questions about Stratos' denial, said FEMA generally is taking applicants' word that their homes are uninhabitable.

"I have no idea how that could have occurred," Jacks said.

The community organizing group ACORN called on FEMA Thursday to provide cash assistance to low-income people such as Barlow who need immediate help with food. After Katrina, the agency provided $2,000 debit cards to thousands of evacuees who were bused to Houston or other cities after spending time in vast encampments in New Orleans' Superdome and convention center.

Audits by federal agencies discovered that more than a third of the 2.5 million cash assistance recipients had provided false or duplicate Social Security numbers in their applications.

Marty Bahamonde, another FEMA spokesman, said the debit card program was a response to the unique circumstances of Katrina, with thousands of people removed long distances from their homes without any opportunity to retrieve personal belongings or documents.

Some advocates for the poor said FEMA has overreacted to reports of fraud in the aftermath of Katrina, imposing rigorous requirements that delay assistance to people who desperately need it.

While she understands the need to protect taxpayers, "I think they've swung too far in the other direction," said Sue Serè, an attorney with Lone Star Legal Aid, who was staffing a table at the southwest Houston recovery center this week.

Berteal Binion, a Fort Bend County resident who was among those waiting in line at the recovery center, said FEMA representatives repeatedly mentioned the Katrina problems to people seeking help from Hurricane Ike.

FEMA Deputy Administrator Harvey Johnson said he believes the agency is striking an appropriate balance between getting help to qualified people quickly and ensuring that taxpayers' money is spent wisely. He said only about 22,000 of those who have applied for assistance have failed FEMA's proof-of-identity requirements.